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Scaling Scrum with Nexus™

A Framework to Help Organizations Scale Scrum

Why Scale Scrum with Nexus?

Scrum is a simple framework for delivering software products using an empirical approach in which teams deliver value in small increments, inspect the results, and adapt their approach as needed based on feedback. It consists of a small set of events, roles, and artifacts, bound together by practices, and enlivened by values that are the key to making it work.

Nexus is an exoskeleton that extends Scrum to guide multiple Scrum teams on how they need to work together to deliver working software in every Sprint. It shows the journey these teams take as they come together, how they share work between teams, and how they manage and minimize dependencies.

The Nexus Guide

Nexus is based on the Scrum Framework and uses an iterative and incremental approach to scaling software and product development. Nexus augments Scrum minimally with one new role and some expanded events and artifacts. The Nexus Framework was created by Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum, and was released by Scrum.org, along with a body of knowledge, the Nexus Guide, in 2015 and updated in 2018. It preserves Scrum. As Ken describes it, “Nexus is the exoskeleton of Scrum.”

New Book Now Available

The Nexus™ Framework for Scaling Scrum is a concise book that shows how Nexus helps teams to deliver a complex, multi-platform, software-based product in short, frequent cycles, without sacrificing consistency or quality, and without adding unnecessary complexity or straying from Scrum’s core principles. Using an extended case study, the authors illustrate how Nexus helps teams solve common scaling challenges like reducing cross-team dependencies, preserving team self-organization and transparency, and ensuring accountability.

Understand the challenges of delivering working, integrated product increments with multiple teams, and how Nexus addresses them

Form a Nexus around a new or existing product and learn how that Nexus sets goals and plans its work

Run Sprints within a Nexus, provide transparency into progress, conduct effective Nexus Sprint reviews, and use Nexus Sprint Retrospectives to continuously improve

Overcome the distributed team collaboration challenges

Forming A Nexus

Like Scrum, it is easy to get started with Nexus, however, the Nexus Framework does first and foremost presume Scrum experience. Organizations that are already familiar with Scrum will be able to benefit from their existing Scrum knowledge. In addition to using Nexus, organizations should establish, promote, and steward technical excellence as a foundation for growth. To start a Nexus, organizations should first:

Identify the teams in their Nexus

Form an initial Nexus Integration Team

Have a single Product Backlog

Have a definition of “Done”

Identify a Sprint cadence

Implementing Nexus

As with Scrum, Nexus alone isn’t enough for success, but it helps drive to the heart of the scaling issue – continually identifying and removing dependencies created by increased complexity. You will also need several techniques to bind the work of the Scrum Teams in your Nexus and that is why we have developed and reformulated over 50 practices to help you launch and sustain a Nexus predictably.

4 Rules for Scaling Scrum

Two Dimensions of Agile at Scale

In this presentation from Agile India Scrum.org Vice President of Enterprise Solutions, Kurt Bittner discusses the ideas of scaling Agile an Scrum from a single team up to many to deliver an integrated product. Many organizations have achieved sufficient success at the single team level with Agile approaches like Scrum that they want to bring Agile to their entire enterprise. They want to reap the benefits of Agile across their whole organization, but they struggle with where to start and how to sustain the change. Scaling Agility has two dimensions: scaling horizontally, across large numbers of teams, and scaling vertically, integrating the work of multiple teams into a single product. Focusing on both dimensions enables organizations to achieve sustainable change by solving 3 main challenges: achieving consistency and the right Agile culture across teams without dictating behaviors, fostering the right interactions between Agile and non-Agile teams when there are dependencies between them, and adapting Agile approaches to deliver products that require a team-of-teams approach.

Where to Find More

There are many more resources related to Nexus. Go to the Resource Center and to find more blogs, papers, videos and more on Nexus.